Kingdom
by Kuroi Atropos
Summary: It is fairly typical that Kirk sees hallucinations due to whatever mishap they've managed to land in. It is unusual however for those invisible shadow monsters to destroy trees and be followed by the appearance of a giant keyhole shaped doorway.


Kingdom

By: Kuroi Atropos

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. I wish I did, but I don't.

Warning: Crack, and crack, and yet more crack.

Summary: The summary is the same as the warning. Crack. But if you need more, well, I blame one of my best friends, roommate and beta reader: Obi-Quiet. We were playing Munchkin and she said Kirk with a Keyblade. Which means that yes, this is a crossover with Kingdom Hearts.

XXXXX

In a rather cliché manner (just like a rather large percentage of their missions that were supposed to be completely normal) this particular planetary survey went completely haywire.

They had been waiting for the rest of the survey teams to meet up with them in the middle of an apparently harmless field with blue grass, bright orange trees and nearly red sky, a combination that had Bones grumbling to Jim about having to treat most of the away team for eyestrain induced headaches. That was when his younger friend had seen something behind him, grabbed his arm and practically thrown him out of the way while he leveled a phaser at it, screaming for Security.

McCoy had grabbed his own weapon the moment he'd recovered from the push aside, spinning up to see whatever it was that had distressed the Captain and saw absolutely nothing as Jim yelled for Spock to 'come look at this thing!'

Just perfect.

Now he'd be trying to convince Jim to stay in sickbay while he treated him for whatever had him hallucinating, figuring out if it had affected the rest of the Away Team and seeing if he needed to start up contamination procedures.

Just great.

He flicked open his own communicator even as he heard the Security members of the Away Team crashing through the bushes to reach them. Which would mean strange skin reactions on top of whatever was causing the hallucinations. "Spock, it's Bones. There's nothing here, Jim's seeing things, I'll drag some of the Security here to help me get him held down but you might want to wrangle everyone up pretty quick so we don't have to hunt them down in containment suits."

"Acknowledged Doctor, advise me of any change in the Captain's condition." Bones didn't bother pointing out the slightly worried tone to the Vulcan's voice as he stood up slowly, too concentrated on carefully putting his phaser away to try and help Jim not see him as some sort of threat.

He called out to the Security Officers to stand down even as they fanned out around them in a circle. He could tell from the way they moved they were wary of whatever had caused their Captain's distress, but at the same time the obvious lack of something in the area where Kirk was pointing his weapon was causing apprehension to start to build in their eyes.

The slight panic permeating the air was getting worse as the Captain began to sound even more frantic and started to have a serious freak out about monsters and shadows. Thankfully he wasn't firing yet and several of their communicators went off with orders from Spock to help get the rest of the Away Team in a central location and to report any variations in their vision. This luckily explained the issue to them without McCoy having to take his attention off of his friend.

"Jim, what exactly are you seeing?" he said, stepping forward with his hands held up in a placating manner.

"You can't see that thing Bones! It's a giant squid shadow monster like right there!" Jim shouted waving his weapon at it.

"Jim, there's nothing there." Bones inched a bit closer to Jim.

"You're kidding, Bones!"

"Put down the phaser, Jim. Let me take a look at you."

"Bones! I don't know what it is but I swear it's there!"

"Jim there's nothing- damn it!" the Captain suddenly wasn't where Bones was looking, moving to tackle one of the security guards out of the way of whatever he was seeing and Bones eyes widened as the tree behind the man shattered. He stopped his forward rush towards his friend and met the eyes of the Senior Security Officer that had frozen right next to him. "You saw that, right?"

"The tree that just got smashed to smithereens? I don't know…did you?"

Bones unholstered his phaser again with one hand and flipped open his tricorder with the other, trying to get a reading on whatever was there even as he heard Security start to call out updates into their communicators. The damn invisible monster wasn't registering on his tricorder and Kirk was too busy waving people out of the way and yelling at the ones not moving fast enough to be much help in pointing Bones in the right direction to get readings from. He was pretty much blindly aiming at whatever was being ripped apart at the time and hoping to get some trace of the thing.

Everyone in the clearing was moving in a strange, haphazard dance as they tried to avoid invisible…whatevers with just the Captain's voice leading them. More crashing sounds came from the surrounding shrubbery and most of the rest of the survey teams arrived with Spock at the lead while Bones cursed at yet more minor injuries and probably infected scrapes even as he focused on the elf, who apparently wasn't quite magic enough to see whatever their Captain could see.

"It's not a hallucination – and it's right about there! Can you register it?" Bones shouted at Spock, the Vulcan had already whipped out his own tricorder taking more readings, the rest of the members from both of their Departments were there checking their instruments as well, even as Security kept shoving them out of the way at the Captain's directions.

"I've got something! It's faint!" Spock darted over to where a member of the Science Department was taking readings with another of their special Toys. The Vulcan looked over the man's shoulders, pointing out a few things on the screen causing the man to quickly make adjustments even as everyone else kept darting around at the Captain's shouts. The blonde's eyes flickered wildly, as if trying to keep track of more than one thing. Which, as Bones thought about it, made sense given the fact that several pieces of their surroundings had shattered at the same time and while Jim's line of sight was averaging rather high, it wasn't high enough that any remotely normal proportion of limbs would be able to make that wide range of damage. Ergo, multiple limbs.

Which meant that there were most likely tentacles or multiple creatures. That made sense too, considering the blond had been shouting something about a squid thing earlier. Oh joy.

Bones met Jim's eyes for a second just in time to see those too bright blues widen and he dove away before a gouge was taken out of the ground where he'd been standing. Now there was a thought, Bones narrowed his own eyes and made his way around the outer rim of the field to point his own scanner directly at the Captain. Whatever this thing was, only Jim could see it, which meant something. He just wasn't sure what yet.

All of a sudden the Captain yelled that there was another one, and shouted a name and one of Spock's people who looked up wildly from where she was working over her scanner, and Jim's "NO!" was drowned out by the scream of the Security Officer that had shoved her out of the way of whatever it was. Jim was cursing wildly, shouting something about a heart, and the poor girl's eyes were huge as the man seemed to vanish, almost as if the sun was setting around just him, covering him in darkness until he was just a silhouette that faded into the air.

The Captain flicked open his own communicator even as he looked horrified at where the Security Officer had been. "Scotty get us out here! Just start beaming damn it!" Jim's eyes focused on something and he shifted enough that Bones' gaze was pulled away from where the woman sat staring at nothing to focus on the readings he was getting from his friend.

Jim's hissed "Oh what now?" as he looked at the dead center of the ring, seeming frankly terrified even as some of the Away Team started beaming up from around them. Bones cursed when he glanced out of the corner of his eye at where Jim was looking. He wasn't sure why he could see this when he couldn't see the Monsters, and he wasn't able to quite stop from flinching back from the giant black maw that emerged to quickly encompass the field.

Everyone not beamed up rushed mostly blindly out of the way of the shadows, not needing the Captain's directions which added another factor into Bones preliminary study, and then the growing black solidified into what appeared to be a giant keyhole.

Bones heard another round of beaming begin before the slight hum got overpowered by Kirk's panicked shout. His eyes immediately focused in on his friend only to watch in horror for a few shocked moments before he dropped his tricorder and phaser to latch onto Jim. It appeared as if Kirk was literally being picked up and dragged by something towards the keyhole. Other hands joined him in trying to save the Captain, even as the flash of phaser fire began between the Captain and the keyhole, trying to make whatever it was holding the Captain let him go.

Neither approach worked. Despite more and more people abandoning firing to try to hold onto the Captain as the distance kept decreasing, they couldn't slow the rate of Jim's movement towards that damn hole by much. It had reached the point where Jim was completely covered by grasping hands, barely an inch of him visible beneath the crush of his crew. And what was he doing? He was screaming at them to not be idiots, to let him go so that they wouldn't get dragged in too.

Stupid wannabe martyr.

Bones could see the slight signs of desperation, pain and sick disappointment in the eyes of the Officers that ended up releasing their Captain as he actually reached the keyhole, following his orders to not enter that portal even if it killed them just a bit. Jim was about halfway through the thing when it felt as if something wrapped around Bone's wrists and applied a sharp pressure, steadily increasing making him want to yell in pain, trying to make him let go of Jim's arms. From the indrawn breaths and occasional curses or hissed cries from the people surrounding them, everyone else holding onto the Captain was feeling the same thing, and one by one until it was just Spock and Bones holding on they all released their grips.

Jim's blue eyes stared almost resignedly at Bones and he could see his friend willing him to let go, to not put himself in danger. Bones swallowed, promising if only to himself to stop at nothing to figure out what was happening and to get his closest friend back. Spock and Jim shared a look too, and then Spock and Bones let go at the same moment, consigning the bright blonde to the darkness.

It swallowed him in an instant.

Bones stared as the Keyhole faded slowly to a very faint outline. Dr. Leonard H. McCoy met Commander Spock's eyes. The normally inscrutable Vulcan had a slightly sinister look on his face, one that promised dire consequences the likes of which Nero had suffered. Bones was pretty sure a touch of desolation edged that nearly black gaze too. Then Spock's face hardened into a mask, his eyes barely containing the maelstrom trapped within him and he met Bones gaze head on and they both nodded as the last round of beaming caused their vision to fade.

XXXX

In the eight days since Jim vanished and Lieutenant Harrison had (to the best of their knowledge) died, Uhura's Communications Teams had gotten to the point where they would tack pictures of various Admirals on the wall to use as phaser practice because they were so tired of the brass constantly comming. It seemed as if all of the Federation was leaning on Starfleet, causing the upper echelons to breath down the command crew's necks to come up with an answer as to what exactly was going on.

Four other starships, the Lexington, the Hood, the Merrimac and the Republic, had been pulled to their location just in the off chance that this turned out to be something like Nero, and to help them discover if that was indeed the case. The new ships had essentially done nothing besides question the initial readings that the Enterprise crew had taken and the tests that they had run in the interim.

It seemed almost as if the other crews completely doubted the results of the scans that had been conducted when Harrison disappeared, as that keyhole appeared, and as the Captain was dragged through it. Having their findings constantly scoffed down upon put no one from the Enterprise in the best of moods. They wouldn't have minded if the other crews actually helped or had something to add, but they only came up with answers that had already been discarded or just pieces of what they had already theorized. If the older 'more experienced' crews would just read the reports that the Enterprise had drawn up they would probably save themselves no small amount of time and effort.

Bones was one of the first to say that this crew, while great, had a few issues with lacking experience, but this was their Captain and he was willing to bet his best bourbon that no crew member would leave a stone unturned to get him back.

The Enterprise crew had worked nearly nonstop, even risking going down to the surface to gather more information and to test out various pet theories.

They'd lost no more lives and had gotten to the point where despite not being able to see the things with their eyes, they could combine several of the sensors, apply a few filters and get images of the strange creatures. Just like Jim had said, they were pretty much giant shadow squid monsters with legs.

Even though the other ships crews' doubted them, they were pretty sure that the creatures existed on a slightly different mix of three distinct realms: Space, Time and Dimension. McCoy got a bit lost on the physics explanations, but he knew that the results from the Science Departments were all promising. Certainly a bit more promising than his Department's, at any rate. He'd had his teams pouring over the scans from the Captain and running simulations based on the readings they'd taken from the creatures in an effort to figure out why only Jim had been able to see the strange beings but everyone had seen the spread of shadows and the Keyhole (yes, they had kept calling it the Keyhole despite Spock's continual urgings that it wasn't actually a keyhole and that it was most likely coincidence that the anomaly looked like one). This had been made particularly trying as they'd never been able to get a piece of the organisms, and not many instruments could get a really concrete reading from them so there weren't many details they could use to extrapolate guaranteed facts about their physical makeup.

They had just beamed down to test a few field emitters that they were 90 percent positive would keep everything away from the Keyhole so they could study it more closely. There was a definite rift between the crews of the other ships and Enterprise Crew (which probably hadn't been helped by the other crews refusing to believe that emitters designed by their younger counterparts would work so they had stayed on their ships until the things had proven themselves). Each of the Bridge Crews were all keeping a close watch via the sensors to make sure none of the shadow beasties circling were going to be able to pounce through the fields (that basically looked like fancy shields) and to warn them if it looked like that would change.

Almost immediately after arriving, one of the Merrimac's Lt. Commanders had screamed bloody murder before falling over backwards and scrambling as far from one of the sides of the field as he could all the while yelling something that sounded vaguely along the lines of 'shit they are real!' The man had only halfway turned to make it to his feet before screaming even louder (if possible) and frankly diving to huddle at the base of one of the emitters.

Hmm.

Bones fingered his practically useless phaser, glancing in the directions the man had, even as he moved up to the Lt. Commander in command yellow to begin scanning him. Just like Jim, this guy could see the things and since his own ship's CMO had chosen not to come down but had sent a duty Nurse that seemed unsure of what to do in this situation (after all it wasn't like the guy was having actual medical issues other than being an idiot).

McCoy first focused on the man's eyes, but just like with Jim he could see nothing unusual, so he calmly switched over to his brain. While there was a small frequency variation in his brainwaves, it didn't match any of the readings he'd gotten from Jim before he'd been yanked away.

He didn't really think that would happen to this guy, but he could kind of imagine it. Though he could very well be over anxious, better to be safe than sorry. He glanced up from his tricorder and nodded at Spock who was simultaneously watching him and directing his people along with all those from the other ships in tests. Spock quickly waved several of the Security Officers over to try and latch onto the guy if he suddenly started flying, and waved for some equipment to be moved out of the way between the guy and the Keyhole. It would really mess up the tests if he ran into them after all.

He began shifting his tricorder over the rest of the man, starting to growl a little when yet more nothing came up. He was distracted from ordering the man up to the Enterprise for more extensive tests when one of the security officers shouted a warning and Bones looked up to see the outline become more pronounced, like a glowing white line surrounding the dark maw of the keyhole. A solid line of red formed between most of the scientists and the doors, for once with no difference between the crews.

Then, as if to make it even worse, a line began to form down the center of the keyhole, almost turning it into a door. As if reading his thoughts the darkness solidified and McCoy was nearly positive that he could see some silver inlay appearing as the shadows actually swung open (that really wasn't his imagination…right?). A fairly significant portion of Security (and everyone else) were now aiming weapons at the thing and McCoy vaguely became aware of the fact that he was clutching his tricorder with one hand and the now horribly shivering Lt. Commander with the other.

Then something walked out of the maw, or well, more specifically walked backwards out of the maw waving and shouting things like how great it was to meet people and how he'd try to find a way to send a few postcards.

McCoy's jaw dropped. There was their missing Captain wearing…well, McCoy wasn't quite sure how to describe that outfit. It was made up of baggy black pants with multitudes of belts and studs, slightly bulky tan boots, a yellow-gold turtle necked sleeveless top with useless zippers scattered about, complete with the ships symbol in black on the back and black leather wristbands. Then there was the strangely shaped gold sword/ax combo thing that Jim held almost jauntily over his shoulder, which had a tilted version of the ship's symbol as the extended part of the blade.

Kirk finished yelling and there was a one last slightly high pitched shout from inside the "doors" before they swung shut and the outline began to recede again. Kirk spun around, and his eyes widened a little bit at the various officers arranged in front of him. He smiled and waved with the hand holding the sword key thing and the gold item vanished making everyone, except for a slightly smirking Jim, jump.

"Bones, Spock, Scotty! What's up?" Bones blinked, was that some sort of code about what Kirk had been through? He wasn't really up to date on all of his Starfleet cryptography. " How long have I been gone? They mentioned time might be a little strange… Oh, do you have coffee? The food there was a little weird and they didn't have any! Are those emitters holding the Heartless back? Sweet! I wasn't sure you guys would be able to rig something like that up, I was all prepped to come in swinging!" That reckless idiot had come in blind and _didn't_ just start swinging? "I wonder if I should send the plans for those through before I shut the doorway down… If I give you a general level of tech do you think you could adapt those to them? And put the plans on actual paper?"

Jim smiled at them, speaking a mile a minute (Bones found himself longing for his bourbon when he realized he' d kept up with the hyperactive blond) while slightly bouncing on his toes like he was wont to do when he had too much energy or adrenaline. Everyone, including the man that Bones had been helping, who had been slightly catatonic and shaking enough McCoy had felt a slight amount of worry for the emitter he'd huddled against, were blinking at the Enterprise's seemingly carefree Captain in shock.

Then Bones was rushing past the security ring along with Spock, beginning to scan their Captain for the injuries that he must have received the second he hit his tricorder's range. "JIM YOU IDIOT! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?"

"While I might not use those terms, I would concur with the sentiment Captain." Came Spock's slightly rushed agreement as he hovered behind McCoy's shoulder looking at the readouts as well.

"Aye laddy! And where di' tha' huge honkin sword go? That must be some interestin' tech!" Scotty sounded surprisingly unfazed, and if McCoy didn't know better he would have guessed that Chief Engineer was more interested in new technology than their Captain.

Jim was blinking at them, and opened his mouth to answer before surely enough, right on time something else had to wrong. This inevitability was indicated by a shower of sparks from one of the emitters. One of the Ensigns monitoring the field on the ground as well as their comlinks to the ships started to scream that something was beginning to get through. Spock raced for the emitter, sharply ordering the Lt. Commander scrambling at the controls aside to begin his own examination.

Everyone began to aim at various areas of the field, waiting for Kirk or the Lt. Commander to tell them where to shoot. While the other man started doing just that, Kirk raced through the group, pushing past security and crouched in a ready stance, hand hovering at his waist right in front of where the Lt. Commander was pointing. The emitter fritzed enough that the field weakened to the point where one of things managed to push through, and it's gigantic outline showed for a moment before the sparking field snapped shut behind it, Spock working to repair the emitter at a rapid pace (that if he wasn't a Vulcan would be called frantic).

Security kept aiming at where the outline had been, waiting for precise targeting from the Captain or the Lt. Commander when, rather than giving them coordinates, Kirk somehow sprang like fifty feet in the air, that sword appearing in his hand again at the apex of his jump. He came down and Bones could see the line of light where the sword sliced through the shadow monster.

Jim landed perfectly balanced in a slight crouch and McCoy blinked, something shining like a crystal teasing at his vision, rising up into the air and vanishing. Kirk stood up straight and turned back to them with a smirk, the sword slung over his shoulder again. The guy just blinked and then in a slightly questioning tone stated, "The creature, it's gone."

McCoy decided that he needed a little clarification on what exactly his decidedly nuts friend had just done. "Jim, phasers didn't work on those things. We even tried the Ship's phasers."

Kirk nodded. "Yeah, I remember that, well, not the ship's phasers, but the handhelds. It's actually because they're in a bit of an alternate dimension. And totally not like that thing with the older Spock either, more like the old string theory of dimensions. Which you know, is actually totally real and not disproved by Rantal's theory of-" Bones turned out the long drawn explanation that seemed to involve multiple names, occasional long sequences of numbers and a few things that made Spock's eyebrow raise up into his hair, and then finally Jim trailed off, and Bones was pretty sure that the only people who had kept up completely with him were Spock and Scotty. "So yeah, you can run a few tests on this baby," Kirk hefted the sword, "and we should be able to get the right frequency to take care of these poor guys."

"Poor guys, Jim? And again with the where did you get that and where have you been? What illnesses did you catch and how did you manage that jump? I don't know all the physics but it should be physically impossible for a human to do that." Bones was a little surprised that he hadn't started screaming again, and figured that he might want to check himself for shock.

"Hmm, well the sword I got from the King of R.O.U.S.s, the jump I picked up here and there, I don't think I caught anything, and I have some cool meds to show you, and poor guys, well, those things used to be humans, or people… Beings… They were hit with, well, I guess you could call it an infection. Don't worry, it's only contagious if they touch you, and you know pretty much right away. That's what we lost Harrison to, he's probably somewhere out there…" Kirk waved to where the fields were successfully holding back the creatures again.

"Jim, you aren't making any sense." McCoy said, even as he switched his tricorder to scan for airborne pathogens just in case.

"Yeah, that's kinda par for the course for where I've been. Heck, I'm not even sure that half of it was real." Oh that did not soun-

"Oh it was real alright enfant, and what that foolish rat was thinking giving a gosse like you a Keyblade is something that I completely fail to comprehend so I refuse to allow it in this dimension so hand that thing over!" A high pitched, slightly nasally voice ripped out. Bones eyes widened as he became even more confused as a man with slightly curly black hair appeared next to Jim with no signs of a transporter wearing a strange uniform consisting of black pants and a red slightly off sided square panel on the front.

"Like Hell, whoever you are!" The blade vanished from Jim's hand and the man growled.

"Look, just because Mickey runs those worlds of his in a completely rag tag manner doesn't mean that we-" while the strange man ranted, for some reason Bones thought back to movie night a few weeks ago when they had watched that old 2D vid, 'The Princess Bride' (which had resulted in most of the Command Crew calling the Captain 'Wesley' behind his back). Then thinking on the same strain, he thought of all the old classic animations that he had watched with his little girl "-and not only that but it's existence in this universe completely breaks the 4th wall-"

That synched it. Bones was across the field interjecting himself between Jim and the weird guy and grabbing Jim's arm. "Jim, please oh please God tell me this nutcase isn't talking about Mickey Mouse."

There was absolute silence and then Kirk sighed and scowled over at the other guy. "Dude, you had so better run because I was kind of planning to take that to my grave."

"I don-"

The key sword thing appeared in Jim's hands again and he aimed it right at the guy and in a calm, clear voice he called out "Thundaga!" A slight hum was the only warning before in the span of milliseconds the air around them darkened and then several bolts of lightning struck the strange man.

The dark thunderheads cleared immediately and the man was standing there blackened, just like in more of the old animations.

"Did I forget to mention that I totally picked up magic while I was there too?" Kirk grinned innocently.

The man looked at him hard, then snapped his fingers as a malicious little smile spread over his face. "I know what I'm going to do! Let's see how you fare against Jean-Luc. He might have more patience for dealing with upstart, wannabe great Captains with egos the size of their ships." The weird man snapped his fingers again and vanished.

Bones wasn't quite sure what he'd done until a loud, baritone voice suddenly carried over the field, "Somebody want to explain where I am and what's going on here?"

The CMO glanced over, and right where Spock had stood was a man with black hair and a beard, most likely human, wearing the exact same uniform as the strange, curly-haired guy, minus one of the pips on the collar.

The previous man's disembodied voice sounded around them. "I hope you enjoy your stay, Commander Riker. Because until Jean-Luc agrees to convince the gosse to give up the Keyblade, you're staying."

Unsure of what else to do, Bones started laughing just a little hysterically.

XXXXX

enfant - roughly child/baby

gosse - brat

Okay, so totally was thinking one-shot on this, so I did mark it as complete, however that ending kinda lead to the muses running so there might be more. You have been warned, feel free to feed the muses, that makes them friendlier.


End file.
